Kolkata: The youth who made the extortion call to Krishnendu Narayan Choudhury, senior Trinamool Congress leader and the chairman of English Bazar Municipality in Malda district of West Bengal, was finally arrested by the investigating officials on Saturday afternoon.
The accused has been identified as Shahdat Sheikh, a resident of Kaliachak in Malda district only.
During the interrogation, he admitted that he made the extortion call to Chowdhury from Kolkata and sent two WhatsApp messages prior to that from the city only. He also admitted that he specially came to Kolkata to make that call and send messages so that he could hoodwink police which might try to track him through the tower location.
Sources from the district police said that he also procured a new SIM card from the city using forged documents to make that call and send messages. After making that call, he went back to Kaliachak from Kolkata on Friday night only.
In the course of interrogation, he also claimed that he was known to Chowdhury before. He claimed that recently he had been under the burden of a huge debt and there came the idea to give the extortion call to Chowdhury.
However, sources said that investigating officials are cross-checking how far the accused is speaking the truth and whether he really has any connection with D-Company or not.
D-Company is an organised crime syndicate that was founded in Mumbai by notorious gangster Dawood Ibrahim.
Incidentally, on Saturday morning only, Trinamool Congress Malda district Trinamool Congress district president in Malda and the party legislator from Malatipur Assembly constituency in the district Abdul Rahim Boxi gave an ultimatum to the police and said that the ruling party workers would be compelled to react if the police do not take prompt action in the matter.
On Friday, Choudhury filed a police complaint claiming that he received a call on the same morning on his mobile phone where an unknown caller claimed to be Pradeep of D-Company and threatened him of eliminating his entire family unless he paid an amount of Rs 20 lakh within 24 hours.
Earlier, Choudhury received two WhatsApp messages on the same lines on his mobile phones which he chose to ignore considering them as pranks.
It is learnt that the investigating officials since Friday detained and interrogated three persons in the matter.
(IANS)
